Knowledge Base

Home / Knowledge Base / KB #240084: SQL will not start. The System cannot find the file specified

Search Knowledge Base

KB #240084: SQL will not start. The System cannot find the file specified

Type

Information

Summary:

SQL Server does not start and the System Event log has an entry from the Service Control Manager: “The system cannot find the file specified.” This can be caused by a few issues. See below for more information.

Additional Information:

Failure of SQL to autostart after reboot, or to start after a manual request, can be caused by several factors. This article references issues where the Service Control Manager reports “The system cannot find the file specified”.

Causes:

Proxy Profile: When configuring Encryptionizer for the SQL instance, you indicated to store the encryption key profile to an alternate location. However, either the Alternate location is not accessible (permissions, mapping error), or the alternate key profile has been deleted/renamed.
see the following KB article for more information:KB240040: Cannot start SQL Server when proxy profile is on a remote machine